From a Justice Division statement issued Nov. 7, however simply posted on Westlaw:
Zimnako Salah, 46, of Phoenix, Arizona, was sentenced at present within the Japanese District of California to 6 years in jail in connection along with his plot concentrating on Christian church buildings.
In March 2025, a jury in Sacramento convicted Salah of strapping a backpack round the bathroom of a Christian church in Roseville, with the intent to convey a hoax bomb menace and to hinder the free train of faith of the congregants who worshipped there. The jury’s verdict included a particular discovering that Salah focused the church due to the faith of the individuals who worshipped there, making the offense a hate crime.
In accordance with the proof at trial, from September to November of 2023, Salah traveled to 4 Christian church buildings in Arizona, California, and Colorado, sporting black backpacks. At two of these church buildings, Salah planted these backpacks, putting congregants in worry that they contained bombs. On the different two church buildings, Salah was confronted by safety earlier than he acquired the possibility to plant these backpacks.
Whereas Salah had been making bomb threats by planting backpacks in Christian church buildings, he had been constructing a bomb able to becoming in a backpack. Throughout a search of his storage unit, an FBI Bomb Technician seized objects that an FBI Bomb Knowledgeable testified at trial served as part elements of an improvised explosive machine (IED).
A search of Salah’s social media data revealed that he had consumed extremist propaganda on-line. Particularly, these data confirmed that Salah had looked for movies of “Infidels dying,” and he had watched movies depicting ISIS terrorists murdering folks. In a cellphone video taken days earlier than the crimes of conviction, Defendant Salah declared, “America. We’re going to destroy it.” …
“Salah’s seeming final aim to bomb a Christian church would have resulted in lots of deaths and accidents if his plan had not been thwarted,” stated U.S. Legal professional Eric Grant. “Due to the motion of church safety, native legislation enforcement, and the FBI, this defendant was stopped earlier than he had an opportunity to hold out the crimes he sought to commit. At the moment’s sentence is justified by the historical past and traits of this defendant and serves to guard the general public from this defendant. And it affirms that folks of all religions ought to have the ability to worship freely and train their First Modification rights on this nation with out worry of violence.” …
From the federal government’s Sentencing Memorandum:
A cellphone video, dated November 10, 2023—two days earlier than the crimes of conviction in Roseville, California—exhibits Defendant Salah outdoors a Christian church in San Francisco, California, with a black backpack. Defendant Salah factors to an American flag and says, “Fuck that flag,” and “America—we will destroy it.”
His statements on that video are per statements he made to a different witness, A.R., months earlier. When Defendant Salah noticed A.R. sporting a hat with the American flag on it, Defendant Salah exclaimed “fuck this nation” and “I hate America,” elaborating that he was offended with the U.S. army for bombing and killing Iraqis. A cellphone video taken throughout that interval exhibits an American B52 bomber, with Defendant Salah commenting: “Idiots, what is that this you might be displaying? All of the world acquired killed by this U.S. Air Pressure airplane! You will need to take away it, in any other case I’ll take away it. There isn’t any God however Allah.”
You’ll be able to see extra particulars within the Criminal Complaint.
